The Collaborative International Dictionary
Guelph \Guelph\, Guelf \Guelf\ (gw[e^]lf), n. [It. Guelfo, from Welf, the name of a German family.] (Hist.) One of a faction in Germany and Italy, in the 12th and 13th centuries, which supported the House of Guelph and the pope, and opposed the Ghibellines, or faction of the German emperors.
Usage examples of "guelf".
Considering their difference in age and status, it seems likely that this shared political affiliation brought Filippo and Donatello together in Pistoia, a city with strong Ghibelline sympathies now under a Guelf regime.
In 1248, a Guelf serving girl under Ghibelline torture near the piazza was saved from death, it was said, through the intercession of a female follower of St.
She looked, indeed, like one of those wonderful boys of the Italian Renaissance, whom you may still see at the National Gallery, whose beauty is no denial, but rather the stamp of their slender, supple strength, young painters and sculptors who held the palette for Leonardo, or wielded the chisel for Michelangelo, and anon threw both aside to take up sword for Guelf or Ghibelline in the narrow streets of Florence.
In the end, Dante was exiled not by his rival Ghibellines but due to an internal split among the Guelfs.